What’s So Rare About Rare Earth Minerals?

July 25, 2025

Energy Secretary Chris Wright went to Wyoming last week to cut the ribbon on the first new rare earth mine in the U.S. since the 1950s. Telling the assembled guests and reporters that the “Brook Mine” is critical to breaking China’s “stranglehold on rare earth processing,” he hinted that it might be the first of […]

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Colorado River Solution Has Always Been Obvious

July 18, 2025

Western newspapers, blogs, and podcasts are humming this month with stories that the seven states on the Colorado River are close to an agreement on managing the River in future years. The existing agreements, designed to “supplement” the ancient and sacred Interstate Compact during drought years, are set to expire at the end of 2026, […]

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A Road is a Road is a Road

July 4, 2025

Gertrude Stein wrote her oft-repeated line “A rose is a rose is a rose…” in a 1913 poem. She explained it as meaning “things are what they are.” But what if it’s called something else? That was Juliet’s question to Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name […]

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Drought Studies – When Will They Ever Learn?

June 27, 2025

Here is a late-breaking flash from a new study released last week at the University of Arizona: westerners use too much water. Pete Seeger’s 1960s folk standard, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, made a genuine classic through cover versions by the Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul and Mary; […]

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Supreme Court Nips NEPA – A Good Start

June 11, 2025

Supreme Court decisions occasionally have far-reaching impacts, but the recent ruling in Utah’s Uintah Basin Railway case was a Doozy, in which the Justices unanimously hinted that Eagle County, Colorado should mind its own business. County Commissioners there had challenged the Surface Transportation Board’s approval of the 88-mile rail line, proposed by seven Utah counties […]

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From Cloned Sheep to Wooly Mammoths

June 6, 2025

A British biologist named John Gurdon won a Nobel Prize for discovering that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become “pluripotent.” That means mature cells can be converted into stem cells, so brain cells can be changed into heart, foot, or skin cells. That enabled Gurdon in 1962 to clone the first vertebrate in his lab, […]

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Energy and Environment: Having It Both Ways

May 30, 2025

A friend named Stephen Heins is an energy and environment consultant who for a long time called himself “The Practical Environmentalist.” We’ve been kindred spirits for years because we never bought the conventional wisdom that a healthy environment is incompatible with a prosperous economy. We think the two concepts should not only be compatible, but […]

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Preventing Attacks From Within

May 23, 2025

An article BBC Science Focus highlights the difficulties of “multi-tasking,” handling several things at a time, which apparently most of us don’t do very well. “In an ideal world, we’d focus on one task at a time, get it finished and only then move onto something else.” But in real life, “It’s all too common […]

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Who Do Those Congressmen Think They Are?

May 14, 2025

The New York Times this week shrieked about congressional republicans using what it called “an obscure law” and “a little-known statute” to rescind regulations adopted at the end of the Biden Administration. The article refers to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which is neither “obscure” nor “little known,” though the reporter might be forgiven for […]

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Does the Government Still Need Reclamation?

May 9, 2025

My Grandpa once gave away a classic Model T. It would be valuable today, but he wasn’t using it and someone else was. In fact, it costs money to keep such things, so he just said, “I didn’t need it anymore.” If only the government were that wise. We have often discussed the Bureau of […]

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